The natural sense of hearing in human beings involves the use of hair cells in the cochlea that convert or transduce acoustic signals into auditory nerve impulses. As such, hearing loss may generally be characterized as being one of two types: conductive and sensorineural. As described below, different types of hearing devices may be used to restore and/or improve hearing in patients based upon what type of hearing loss the patients suffer from.
Conductive hearing loss may occur when the normal mechanical pathways for sound to reach the hair cells in the cochlea are impeded. For example, these sound pathways may be impeded by damage to the auditory ossicles, resulting in an unwanted attenuation of sounds prior to reaching the hair cells in the cochlea. As such, conductive hearing loss may often be overcome through the use of hearing devices that amplify sounds to help acoustic signals reach the hair cells at easily perceivable levels. For example, various types of hearing aids that function in this way may be available to improve hearing for those with conductive hearing loss.
Sensorineural hearing loss, on the other hand, is caused by the absence or destruction of the hair cells in the cochlea, which are needed to properly transduce acoustic signals into auditory nerve impulses. Accordingly, while patients who suffer from certain degrees of sensorineural hearing loss (e.g., mild, moderate, and/or profound hearing loss) may derive at least some benefit from hearing aids, certain patients who suffer from more serious degrees of sensorineural hearing loss (e.g., profound or total hearing loss) may be unable to derive significant benefit from hearing aid systems, no matter how loud the acoustic stimulus. Thus, to overcome certain degrees of sensorineural hearing loss, hearing devices such as cochlear implant systems (also known as cochlear prostheses) have been developed to bypass the hair cells in the cochlea altogether by presenting electrical stimulation directly to the auditory nerve fibers by way of an array of electrodes implanted within the cochlea. By directly stimulating the auditory nerve fibers in this way, patients with sensorineural hearing loss may perceive sound and at least partial restoration of hearing function may be achieved.
Unfortunately, with any type of hearing loss from which a patient may suffer, and with any type of hearing device that the patient may use, it may be difficult, impractical, or impossible for the patient to clearly and adequately perceive certain sounds presented to the patient in certain situations. For example, as a result of noise, reverberation, and the like, the signal-to-noise ratio in a relatively large and/or crowded room (e.g., a classroom, a theater, a conference room, a restaurant, a convert venue, etc.) may cause significant difficulty for the patient in trying to understand what one or more speakers (e.g., instructors, presenters, performers, etc.) in the room are saying. In some situations, a device (e.g., a microphone or the like) may be used to capture sound made by the speaker (e.g., the speaker's voice, etc.) near the source in order to amplify the sound and/or transmit a signal (e.g., a wireless signal) representative of the sound for the benefit of various people listening (e.g., everyone in the room, those in the room who suffer from hearing loss, people listening in a separate location to which the sound is being broadcast, etc.). However, conventional systems and methods by which various types of hearing devices receive, process, and present such signals to patients may be outdated, inflexible, and otherwise in need of improvement so as not to stifle improvements that could be made and/or are being made to new generations of hearing devices.